MUSIC OF THE HEART: Drama. Starring Meryl Streep, Aidan Quinn, Angela Bassett and Gloria Estefan. Directed by Wes Craven. (PG. 130 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

Some people will warm to ``Music of the Heart,'' and for those people the idea of criticizing the film will be like kicking a puppy. This movie gives love, wants love and is all about love. But it also drools. It barks for two hours straight, and it's not much fun to be around.
We have seen this movie many times before. We are expected to love it each time. Now it's back.

It would be absurd to criticize the picture for being predictable, because all movies about teachers and students -- unless they're horror movies -- end the same way. Where ``Music of the Heart'' falls down is that it's predictable in its details. The characters, the encounters, the emotional dynamics and the conversations all seem programmatic.

Meryl Streep is the good news. She has to act opposite kids. She wears a ridiculous black wig, and, though in her early 50s, plays a woman in her late 20s for half the film. I don't care. I'll put up with all of that for a half-dozen close-ups of Streep thinking on camera. ``Music of the Heart'' may be based on a true story, but Streep is the one true thing.

She plays Roberta Guaspari, a military wife with two kids who is dumped by her husband. When Streep plays getting dumped, she makes everyone in the audience feel it. It's like a trapdoor opens inside her and she never stops falling.

A chance meeting with a friend points her in the direction of a new life. A school in East Harlem is willing to hire her as a violin teacher -- especially after she informs them that she can stake the school to the tune of 50 violins.

``Music of the Heart'' -- based on the true story of a teacher whose story was told in the 1996 documentary ``Small Wonders'' -- is not without its moments. 英语影评 one point Guaspari harps on how a violinist has to ``stand strong,'' only to realize that one of her students is wearing braces on her legs. Later, she tells the girl that it's possible to ``stand strong on the inside.'' The sense Streep gives of a decent and fallible woman fumbling her way to genuine humanity is touching.

But there's a canned feel about the film. It plays as if it's based not on a true story, but on other movies based on true stories.

Bassett is the tough-but-fair principal. There is the inevitable crisis- of-confidence scene, not to mention the encounter with a hostile parent, who is won over by a single soaring speech.

Between the scenes, ``Music of the Heart'' tries to tell the story of a working mom dealing with heartbreak, two kids and a tight budget. Aidan Quinn plays the new boyfriend, a nice guy who won't commit. The set-up may have had some bite, but director Wes Craven, best known for horror movies, presents the story through rosy shades. He is trying too hard to reform.

Without psychos in closets to build scenes around, Craven can find no rhythm. Structurally, the picture seems to end in the middle and then begin again. The beginning should have been prologue, or the end, epilogue; instead, we get two ungainly halves.

Gloria Estefan appears as a fellow teacher in a role that amounts to nothing. More successfully, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman and other violin greats make cameo appearances. It's a pleasure to hear them perform. But even at its best, ``Music of the Heart'' feels more like an earnest commercial for music education than successful entertainment.